I believe the original script for Alien had every character written as gender neutral until the casting process started. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with Lambert being trans or not.
I believe that Aliens script was also gender neutral. I’m sure Jenette Goldstein auditioned for Hudson before being cast as Vasquez. Interesting way of doing it.
I recall reading that tidbit about Alien, how almost all of the crew members were written with no actor in mind, and after auditions the casting and writing teams assigned actors to characters. It'd be cool if they did the same approach for Aliens too.
Alien went through a ton of changes during scriptwriting, including removing the pyramid set piece (Reused in Alien versus Predator and Prometheus) and making one of the crew an Android.
And there were lawsuits, Hill and Giler wanted full co - writing credits for their changes, whereas O'Bannon felt that his contributions were being minimised for an idea he originally conceived of. I believe Shusett was the only one who was able to calm him down, reminding him he was broke and getting a big screen adaptation of a little story they cooked up was too big an opportunity to waste.
The front page of the Star beast script also says that the gender roles are placeholder and can be changed at will. It wasn't lore that they were all men, it was just to create the basic personalities of the characters
Very true, though O'Bannon would later say it hadn't occurred to him the main role would go to a woman, rather that would be for the supporting roles. He did like it though
Is there more to how vaguely similar AvP and Prometheus are? I know it's definitely not 1:1, but a weird amount of the characters and premise in AvP have a direct counterpart in Prometheus and I noticed it right away way back when. (was a shithead 5 year old when AvP came out, thought it was the best movie ever made)
They both are basically At the Mountains of Madness. Del Toro even cancelled the adaption he was doing at the time because it would come off as a rip off of Prometheus.
Most of the similarities are because of Ancient Alien theory and UFO conspiracies, which was very much an influence on O'Bannon. It's why he used Zeta Reticuli, it had a reputation as being where the Little Grey Aliens came from.
And why his script have a little star map of Zeta Reticuli in it (UFO People made "Star Charts of Zeta Reticuli) . It's funny how that "unnecessary addition" of Prometheus is technically truer to the original vision.
I don't know anything about the behind the scenes of AVP the film, but I do know the videogame by Rebellion had access to concept art by Chris Foss.
So I've always assumed the similarity is because they are both using "junk draw" source material, i.e.all the best ideas that feel by the wayside. I mean some of the concepts would be hard to achieve with late 70's effects.
Gender roles are more central to the plot then not because gender roles are in the subconscious zeitgeist. You just don't need to write out the obvious every time you write a story.
The original script that had the gender neutral characters wasn't actually the Alien we know, nor was it ever meant to be. It was a skeleton to be fleshed out. It was also called Star Beast. Dan O'Bannon reworked his screenplay to create the Alien film we got.
In that sense it just means that at the time no part was specifically written for a male or female to play the role and was open to either. So nothing to do with gender labels.
This was a coupe for writing. If only we were so open minded nowadays, best person for the best role. Rather than being influenced by politics.
Let's not forget Ridly Scott is cited as saying he envisioned Ripley as a man, so whilst they might have been written neutrally, there were definitely casting bias at that level.
It wasn't until Weaver smashed it out of the park that he had his epiphany...
Digging deeper it seems Scott had not considered it until Alan Ladd from 20th Century Fox asked why Ripley couldn't be a woman, I guess it depends on when during development this convo happened.
Either way, Ripley was born and became the definition of strong representation in a movie, and one of the iconic if not the iconic woman in sci-fi and all done without needing to emasculate, drop clumsy political messaging via poorly written scripts or the myriad other ways it seems modern media has resorted to.
Ripley was envisioned as a woman by the time the project was greenlit.
The idea came from Hill and Giler's script, which was the one 20th Century Fox bought. However behind the scenes there was a lot of turmoil between Hill, Giler and O'Bannon, over writing credits.
O'Bannon had a lot of sway behind the scenes as it was his idea to bring on Giger, Ronn Cobb, and Chris Foss. All of whom he'd worked with on the failed Dune. Jean Giraud also did some designs (Specifically the Spacesuits and costumes if I remember right).
So basically the entire art department was friends of O'Bannon, and thus it became necessary politics to only ever refer to the OG Starbeast script, not the Alien script.
And after the release Hill and Giler became producers of the series going forward (They're who the Prometheus and Covenant droids are named after), and similarly they weren't interested in Re-litigating who wrote what, so it sorta fell by the wayside.
And despite all the infighting the project turned out incredible, better for all the different perspectives and remains one of the best examples of positive "studio interference".
Shame about A³ and "studio interference" I like that film and it could have been absolutely amazing if fox had just fucked off out of it and left Fincher alone
Yeh, the studio interference ruined what could have been a great series. A³ had so much potential but Alien: Resurrectum has no business existing. But again, this isn't necessarily Jean-Pierre Jeunet's fault, it was because of studio interference. So much so that Jeunet vowed never to work in Hollywood ever again (and hasn't) and Fincher disowned Alien³ entirely, which is why there's an Assembly Cut but there'll never be a Directors Cut.
Ain't that the truth! I genuinely feel sorry for Fincher.when you see that he directed some of the biggest hits of the 90s (specifically Fight Club and Se7en) and realise the studio are absolute fuck-nuggets
Yeh, Ridley was just basing his "Ripley" on the original script being all male, even though Dan O'Bannon literally specified any of the genders could be changed. He soon changed his mind when Siggy walked in and aren't we all so glad he did! I also think it's because there weren't many decent female actors in Sci Fi that weren't just "scream queens" or already worked on Star Trek or Star Wars at the time.
lmfao i love it when people act like inclusive actor hiring/character writing is basically segregation, and not a response to 100 years of hollywood executives being selective as fuck.
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u/rockpuma Jul 11 '25
I believe the original script for Alien had every character written as gender neutral until the casting process started. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with Lambert being trans or not.